Hello everyone, it's been a few months since we've emailed you and we hope you're all doing well and enjoying the new year. January 25th saw our first board meeting of 2009 which lasted a whopping 3 hours! We discussed quite a bit and we're looking forward to a great 2009! Before we get to Events we're happy to announce that TBAG has renewed its membership with the League of American Bicyclists, has become a member of the Thunderhead Alliance for Biking & Walking, is in the process of becoming a member of the Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists and has also entered into a Joint Partnership Agreement with Maricopa Assoc. of Govt.s (MAG) and Regional Public Transportation Authority (RPTA) which will, among other things, allow us bulk purchasing power of safety equipment such as helmets and advocacy materials.

On to Events, here's a quick rundown of what's in store (so far) for the first half of 2009:

• February 3rd: Public meeting for College Ave Traffic Calming, 6pm, Tempe Public library Conference Room.


• February 9th: Bike Saviours begins their 2nd eight week bicycle maintenance class, 7:30pm every Monday.


• February 15th: Annual Volunteer Meeting, 7pm, Boulders on Broadway. Anyone interested in volunteering to help us out this year is encouraged to attend. TBAG will provide some munchies and we�ll share our plans for the first half of 2009. We�ll be taking names and information from those interested in volunteering. We also hope that you�ll bring ideas to the table and share them with us, which we as a board will review, and possibly act upon.


• February 19th: Valley Metro Directors Meeting regarding VM fare increases.


• February 20th - 23rd: Arizona Bike Coop Conference, details forthcoming.


• March 7th - 8th: Great Arizona Beer Festival Bike Valet! This is not finalized yet but we've met with Sun Sounds and they've given us verbal approval, all that's left is getting paperwork signed!


• Valley Metro Bike Month (April): As of this email TBAG is coordinating two events in conjunction with bike month. The first is a commuter caravan / bikepool from all free breakfast locations to the Tempe Transportation Center on 4/22. The second is a Bicycle Awareness Lawn Sign Design & Slogan Contest that is NOW OPEN! Design submissions are due February 28th! First prize is a shiny new bicycle and printing of your lawn sign design.

As always, please stay tuned to the blog for updates as we're certain other events will pop up here and there. The blog will soon have a new events and rides calendar. We also plan to send a monthly newsletter around the 1st of each month to keep you up to date on TBAG happenings. If you haven't done so, please remember to visit the Forums and if you're on Twitter, follow us for daily musing about bicycles, blog post notifications, last minute events and both local and global bicycle related news!

Ride safely!

-Tempe Bicycle Action Group